Missouri 79, Illinois 63 POSTGAME

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Just curious but why is DaMonte Williams not getting much time especially over Feliz? I thought he was a good defensive player last year. I haven't seen all the games and I could be wrong but it seems he played more last year than this year. Seems Feliz drives into the lane a lot but can't do anything once he is there.

Defensive Rating is not a particularly useful stat in the context you've provided. The only individual stats on defense that we have are steals and blocks. For the rest of the rating, it is completely dependent on team defense. As you might expect, anyone would look better having Tilmon standing behind him as opposed to Mike Finke, or GB. (And as far as "Underwood's defense" goes, DRtg heavily rewards steals, so you'd expect that system to kick out better numbers for guards than a dull, garden-variety defense would.)

It's not unreasonable to say that Smith has improved, or at the very least is playing better than last year. I'd go so far as to say that's expected. But it's kind of disingenuous to look at who his teammates are, and the fact that he's made the leap from frosh to soph. and say that he's a different player just because of the system he's in.

That's fair and you are probably right about the stat I used but we are also both kind of saying the same thing. Maybe it is personnel or maybe it's defensive scheme or a combination of both but I don't think Smith was/is as bad a defender as many believe he is/was. Regardless which it is the scheme you run should depend on the players you have. So if Underwood doesn't have the bigs to help out then change the defensive scheme and stop pressing the ball out front so much that the opponent is getting easy points inside the lane.

That's fair and you are probably right about the stat I used but we are also both kind of saying the same thing. Maybe it is personnel or maybe it's defensive scheme or a combination of both but I don't think Smith was/is as bad a defender as many believe he is/was. Regardless which it is the scheme you run should depend on the players you have. So if Underwood doesn't have the bigs to help out then change the defensive scheme and stop pressing the ball out front so much that the opponent is getting easy points inside the lane.

Sure, who knows. I personally think that this team would have trouble keeping guys out of the lane and stopping them once they're in regardless of how they play it, so you might as well choose a system that relies on denying shots via forced turnovers.

So much ink has been spilled about how Underwood turned OSU around by changing up the defense, but nobody mentions who OSU played during the stretches where their defense was merely 'bad' as opposed to 'horrible.' Four of the games in the six-game losing streak that kicked off the B12 schedule for them were against top-20 teams, including a couple of the absolute best offensive teams in the country in ISU and KU. They actually got scorched in their last four games of the season, again facing extremely stiff competition (ISU twice, KU, and Michigan), a stretch that looked quite a bit like their opening six in quality of competition and performance.

Also worth noting: that first six games contained what was their worst string of offensive performances as well. Who knows if those two things were related, but they might have been. Over the last year and a half of watching his Illinois teams, it seems like our defensive intensity lapses when we can't get the ball in the basket. I'm not sure there's a cure for that, but it's awfully tough to maintain intensity when you don't see rewards, either with baskets or with wins. This schedule is really looking like a curse. Not sure we had much of a choice there, though -- 20 conference games, the ACC and Big East challenges, and Mizzou were all set. All that could have been done is to not go to Maui, and can you do that? I don't know.

That's not to say that changing the system can't help. Maybe it can. But it's really going to be about nibbling at the margins, and I'm not sure that's going to make a whit of difference in the W/L column given who we are and who we'll play from here on out. That's not much to look forward to.

Of course we overpaid. No doubt about that. Not only was he a bad fit, but BU's buyout is ridiculous high. His market value was $1M salary with a $3M buyout at OSU just a year ago. The salary tripled (which is less of an issue) but his buyout is $15.25M first year(!), $12.4M second year, etc. It is an astronomical buyout, despite not being a good fit. In comparison, Chris Mack at Louisville starts at $6M and drops $500K every year! We gave BU an absolutely ridiculous buyout, one of the best in the industry. This contract and buyout lock you in on a bad decision no matter how bad things turn out, and right now we are on track to have the worst 2-yr period since 1973-75 when Harv Schmidt and Gene Bartow were the coaches. We are stuck!

Ohio State paid more than double what we did to get Holtman, so comparing to Mack isn't conclusive. Any discussion of the contract now is hindsight. I don't remember a lot of crying when JW went out and poached Underwood, and got what was generally thought of as the second best hire of the year in college basketball.

It really doesn't matter what the buyout is because BU is not getting fired this year. The big buyout is not just to insure no one poaches your coach, but also to insure the coach that he is going to get a fair shot (3-4 years) at a turn around. No one expects to be paying that buyout before about year 4. And before everyone decides without any evidence that we are not going to win any conference games, that the locker room is a mess, and that all our players are going to transfer next year, we just might want to let the year play itself out and see where we are at. Last year's recruiting class was pretty good and at this time we only had one player. They still have time.

Personally, I think you should stick with a coach until you have reason to believe that the new guy you can reasonably get will almost certainly be an upgrade. With the incoming class he had, I was unsure we should give up on Groce (sometimes it takes a while to learn a job - i.e. Henson). But I had to credit JW with not dithering and getting a guy with some gravitas while the getting was good. Had we waited, we would have been competing with a lot of other schools. It may be that BU does not pan out, but I really think that (1) we don't know one way or the other yet, and (2) his hiring process was well done from JW's standpoint.

The DBPM (Defense Box Plus/Minus) data you linked confirms what I was suggesting before: that very low playing time (and therefore less possessions, which is what OBPM and DBPM are measured against) distorts and misrepresents Tyler Underwood's contributions.

Tyler has played less, seen his most playing time against the weakest level of competition we've faced, poached a steal here or there (half of his steals, 2/4, have come against ETSU and Evansville), and this is entirely what is responsible for his inflated DBPM. He is averaging 3.8 steals per 40 minutes, and this is distorting the mathematics of his defensive advanced states calculations.

If we took Tyler's DBPM at face value, and mute all context (as you did), what a +5.1 DBPM implies is that Tyler Underwood is one of the two most efficient defensive players on the team.

Interestingly, Samba Kane has a DBPM of +6.3, which results from the same statistical circumstances that affect Tyler's advanced stats: less minutes equals less possessions, wherein an extra steal or block here or there will spike the mess out of a player's advanced stats. Samba is averaging 4.1 blocks per 40 minutes.

Damonte Williams, who is clearly a more skilled on ball defender, and who shows *visible* understanding/anticipation of defensive principles, has a DBPM of +3.5.

So, Alan Griffin's DBPM of +2.0 ranks among the top 3 of any Illini guard.

* * * * *​

After digging into these numbers, it made me wonder if Coach Underwood's answer to the press, "Tyler is way ahead defensively", was a prepared statement in anticipation of handling the nepotism question/implication. The advanced stats/DPBM is his alibi. Like a politician, which a professional or collegiate coach kind of is, Coach knows that such a statement would be enough to satisfy those who don't want to believe that he might be playing his son for selfish reasons - a piece of superficial data that would sufficiently pacify those who could not or would not see with their own eyes that young Underwood is a liability on the court. If Coach Underwood is truly invested in understanding advanced stats, he will know more clearly than either you or I that Tyler's DBPM is one of the least informative statistics of any player on the team, given the context.

The hardest thing for anyone - and especially a man - to do is question his own perspectives/worldview. Everyday we see in the loud theater of American politics what happens when people are unable to consider opposing viewpoints. But if these exchanges have any value, it is to offer us meaningful challenges to our own beliefs. You (and others) believe that there is a sincere reason, one beneficial to the team, that Tyler Underwood is getting minutes when he is, and you offered the advanced stats as a logical basis for your beliefs. You are clearly an intelligent person, and the construction of your argument was intelligent. But now that the basis of your argument has been comprehensively neutralized, providing evidence that your thinking on the issue was flawed, will you question other facets of your beliefs, such as this matter being a bigger deal than you were previously willing to acknowledge?

I think (and I very much hate to post this on the internet), the problem is Ayo. I bet no one expected Ayo to underperform as much as he is doing. I do not want to come across as a complaint, but, more as an observation. The return on expectation (RoE), on Ayo, I bet is the lowest. IF it met, let alone exceeded, I bet we would not be talking of TU.

IF Ayo had scored 10 and we had made the 11 FTs we missed, we would have won in typical BR style - by 2/3 points. And, IMHO, it is not too much to expect that out of Ayo. ????????????????

I think (and I very much hate to post this on the internet), the problem is Ayo. I bet no one expected Ayo to underperform as much as he is doing. I do not want to come across as a complaint, but, more as an observation. The return on expectation (RoE), on Ayo, I bet is the lowest. IF it met, let alone exceeded, I bet we would not be talking of TU.

IF Ayo had scored 10 and we had made the 11 FTs we missed, we would have won in typical BR style - by 2/3 points. And, IMHO, it is not too much to expect that out of Ayo. ????????????????

It's not all about fouling out. If he would have stayed in after picking up 2 fouls in less than 5 minutes he would have had to back off the rest of the half and not played aggressively. If he picked up his 3rd foul in the first half then ithe same would be said for how he played in the second half. The right thing to do was sit him.

I'm also not sure if the Illini aren't better with either Trent or Ayo on the floor instead of both of them on at the same time.

I fully understand that thought process and disagree with it. I've also coached and played. Sitting a guy who is not winded with only two fouls for any entire first half is being afraid to lose versus going for the win. What is so magical about the last 20 minutes versus 25 instead?

I think (and I very much hate to post this on the internet), the problem is Ayo. I bet no one expected Ayo to underperform as much as he is doing. I do not want to come across as a complaint, but, more as an observation. The return on expectation (RoE), on Ayo, I bet is the lowest. IF it met, let alone exceeded, I bet we would not be talking of TU.

IF Ayo had scored 10 and we had made the 11 FTs we missed, we would have won in typical BR style - by 2/3 points. And, IMHO, it is not too much to expect that out of Ayo. ????????????????

I wouldn't give up on Ayo quite yet. Remember that Trent didn't "break out" until last year's Braggin' Rights game. And when he broke... That's not saying, of course, that Ayo is going to be Trent II, but some of these kids, having been the cream of the high school competition, get b-slapped by the reality of big-time college ball. I'm willing to wait on Ayo. Let him get his sea legs, and he'll be alright.

I fully understand that thought process and disagree with it. I've also coached and played. Sitting a guy who is not winded with only two fouls for any entire first half is being afraid to lose versus going for the win. What is so magical about the last 20 minutes versus 25 instead?

I already told you, you can't play as aggressive. You have to back off. The other team also knows you are in foul trouble so the smart thing for them to do is to drive on that guy and watch him back off and let you score easy buckets.

This isn't unique to Underwood. It's what every coach does and for good reasons.

BTW: Ayo played 17 minutes total and had 4 fouls, had he stayed in the whole first half he would have fouled out very early. Not that it really mattered in that game this time though.

I already told you, you can't play as aggressive. You have to back off. The other team also knows you are in foul trouble so the smart thing for them to do is to drive on that guy and watch him back off and let you score easy buckets.

This isn't unique to Underwood. It's what every coach does and for good reasons.

BTW: Ayo played 17 minutes total and had 4 fouls, had he stayed in the whole first half he would have fouled out very early. Not that it really mattered in that game this time though.

Absolutely, I saw the same lack of attacking Tilmon. I think Tilmon got 4 with 12 or more minutes. In any case, we didn't go after him. (May have been a different game, but the theory applies.) We could have scored a ton, or at least gotten some nice shots.

We have to reign the defense in, compact around the 3 pt line. I will take a poorer % 3 pt shot vs an easier 7 footer any day. Clog up the middle.
Put Kane and Giorgi in together, and sub 5th year center.

We also don't shoot very well. Can't win without making shots. I liked Groce when he instructed his players to shoot 15,000 shots during the summer.

I already told you, you can't play as aggressive. You have to back off. The other team also knows you are in foul trouble so the smart thing for them to do is to drive on that guy and watch him back off and let you score easy buckets.

This isn't unique to Underwood. It's what every coach does and for good reasons.

BTW: Ayo played 17 minutes total and had 4 fouls, had he stayed in the whole first half he would have fouled out very early. Not that it really mattered in that game this time though.

This is absolutely not true....daily there are players with 2 fouls on them playing in the first half. And you don't have to back off with 2 fouls. With that thinking nobody with 4 fouls should ever be in any game period.

When push comes to shove, there are two primary factors which account for the basketball teams's current level of performance - the players and the coaches. No one holds any ill will toward any of the players. As I recall Deron Williams had a average freshman year. But we have not won a conferencing championship in nearly 15 years or been to the NCAA tournament in 5. Given the strength of the Big 10 this year, we are potentially looking at the two worst back-to-back seasons in the history of the program.. I try to take all posts to the forum with a grain of salt, we are all just frustrated and "pissed off."

I wouldn't give up on Ayo quite yet. Remember that Trent didn't "break out" until last year's Braggin' Rights game. And when he broke... That's not saying, of course, that Ayo is going to be Trent II, but some of these kids, having been the cream of the high school competition, get b-slapped by the reality of big-time college ball. I'm willing to wait on Ayo. Let him get his sea legs, and he'll be alright.

When you give someone like Trent the freedom that he has, no other guard is going to be able to play well with him. See Mark Smith and Ayo. Trent is pulling up from Thailand and no one is mad at him because him shooting from half court is most likely the best look we will get in the entire possession.

This is absolutely not true....daily there are players with 2 fouls on them playing in the first half. And you don't have to back off with 2 fouls. With that thinking nobody with 4 fouls should ever be in any game period.

Yes sometimes they are playing towards the end of the first half with 2 fouls if the team is needs a boost from them. But when you get 2 fouls in the first 2: 28 seconds you have to sit for awhile. Which he did. He did come back in towards the end of the first half. I know he was in there with 5:30 left because he missed a shot at that time.

And your last statement makes me think you didn't play or coach at any level other than a video game. If you did you would know what the difference is between the 2 halfs.

You should watch other games too instead of just Illinois, because I guarantee if you did you would no this is what coaches do at every level.

When you give someone like Trent the freedom that he has, no other guard is going to be able to play well with him. See Mark Smith and Ayo. Trent is pulling up from Thailand and no one is mad at him because him shooting from half court is most likely the best look we will get in the entire possession.

I agree with this. Our half court offense, in my opinion, is ineffective. Pinch post handoff is known and teams guard it hard. Somebody, usually Trent, has to take over. We don't get a chance to get Ayo on break because we give up too many layups and offensive rebounds. Contrast with Phinisee at Indiana, running a more traditional offense with decent options to distribute to and takes the open shot when available. Is Phinisee better than Ayo? Don't know but he is in much better situation.

Yes sometimes they are playing towards the end of the first half with 2 fouls if the team is needs a boost from them. But when you get 2 fouls in the first 2: 28 seconds you have to sit for awhile. Which he did. He did come back in towards the end of the first half. I know he was in there with 5:30 left because he missed a shot at that time.

And your last statement makes me think you didn't play or coach at any level other than a video game. If you did you would know what the difference is between the 2 halfs.

You should watch other games too instead of just Illinois, because I guarantee if you did you would no this is what coaches do at every level.

I have coached small school high school and Jr high for 13 years, and I never automatically bench a player with 2 fouls in the first half. I'll sit them down for a bit, and they may or may not go back in before halftime. If it's one of my best players and we hold on to the lead, then I might keep them out because I have that luxury, but if we fall behind I'll put them back in. If it's a player who generally doesn't foul much I won't worry about it at all, and I'll stick to my normal rotation.

There are a lot of thoughts on this subject and you're acting like there's no room for disagreement. Here's an article from cleaning the glass that's pretty good, but even this author says there's not much data that you can use. I remember the game and JVG's rant that the article is focusing on and I agreed with him at the time.

I have coached small school high school and Jr high for 13 years, and I never automatically bench a player with 2 fouls in the first half. I'll sit them down for a bit, and they may or may not go back in before halftime. If it's one of my best players and we hold on to the lead, then I might keep them out because I have that luxury, but if we fall behind I'll put them back in. If it's a player who generally doesn't foul much I won't worry about it at all, and I'll stick to my normal rotation.

There are a lot of thoughts on this subject and you're acting like there's no room for disagreement. Here's an article from cleaning the glass that's pretty good, but even this author says there's not much data that you can use. I remember the game and JVG's rant that the article is focusing on and I agreed with him at the time.

Yes there is room for disagreement, I agree. But like I said earlier, when a guy picks up 2 fouls in the first 2:30 he's going to be sitting for a while. If not he can't keep playing at the same intensity as he normally does and has to back off. And like I said if the guy stayed out there then the other team would be very smart to "attack" that guy to either make him pick up another foul or make him back off so your team gets easier looks and points. And I mentioned in other posts it depends on who the player is and what the game situation is.

To say Underwood was wrong for sitting Ayo most of the first half in my opinion is wrong and just about every coach out there would have benched him when he committed the 2nd foul so early. Anyways it's silly to argue about it and I'm done with it.